I’ve found the family in the 1911 census, minus Lilie, Harry and Ann who were not yet born. The family of seven were living in three rooms at 29 Pearman Street in Lambeth – quite a squeeze!

George Jones was employed as a House Painter and it seems Maria had given birth to one other child who had sadly died before the census was taken.

The Jones family in the 1911 census – please click to enlarge

There’s a bit of a family rumour surrounding my great-great-grandmother’s family – Maria Taylor’s father is thought to have won the Doggett’s Coat and Badge race, a rowing race along the River Thames. I’m looking forward to seeing if I can prove this for my nan.

While testing the new records with a few of my family names, I discovered that my great-great-great-uncle William Silk was tried on 1 April 1913 at the Central Criminal Court in London – otherwise known as the Old Bailey.

It tells me that William Silk was 49 years old and a Post Office Overseer. He was accused of stealing postal packets and postal orders to the value of £1. 10s. 6d., pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months hard labour at Wormwood Scrubs Prison.

William Silk was the older brother of my great-great-grandfather Charles Silk, who I know also worked for the Post Office. Charles was employed as a Sorter from when he started work in 1890 to when he retired in 1931, but census records reveal that William had progressed to being an Overseer by 1901.

The 1911 census below was taken two years before William was sent to prison and shows him living with a wife and four children. I wonder how the family faired after William’s trial, and also whether it was this incident that affected Charles Silk’s progression at the Post Office.

A couple of posts ago, I found my great-grandmother Ada Howard and her parents in the 1911 census. I thought I’d return to this particular line of my family history and concentrate on tracking it back a bit further.

Ada was seven in the 1911 census, suggesting that she was born in around 1903/1904. The census form also states that my great-grandmother was born in Buntingford, Hertfordshire. By searching the birth indexes at findmypast.co.uk, I found the following entry for an Ada Maria Howard born in Royston in 1903.

Ada Maria Howard's birth record

I gave Royston a quick google and it seems it’s only about eight miles away from Buntingford. It therefore looked likely that this was the record of my great-grandmother’s birth, so I used the reference details provided to order Ada’s birth certificate from the General Register Office.

Ada Maria Howard's birth certificate

The birth certificate tells me that Ada was born on 11th June 1903 in Layston, Buntingford. It informs me that her father, Ernest Howard, was a Chimney Sweeper Master and that her mother’s name was Mercy. Interestingly, Mercy’s maiden name was Howard – perhaps a sign that my great-great-grandparents were cousins?

I’ve updated the Howard side of my family tree with the details I’ve gleaned from both the 1911 census and Ada’s birth certificate. I think I’ll continue tracing this particular branch of my family tree for the time being – I’d love to find out a bit more about Ernest’s occupation and also whether there really was a bit of inter-family marriage in the Howard line.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working on a project to show family history newbies exactly how you can start researching your family tree with findmypast.co.uk. I’ve used an example from my own ancestry – my paternal Silk line – and have actually managed to trace my tree back to about 1794 using these 10 steps.

To take a look at my progress, simply click on the image below and a powerpoint presentation will start downloading.

If you then select ‘notes page’ in the ‘view’ section of the tool bar at the top of the screen, you’ll be able to see my notes along with the images on the presentation itself. Alternatively, if you wanted to print the presentation, simply select ‘notes pages’ in the drop down box under ‘print what’ and it will print both my notes and the images.

Now that I know my great-grandparents were alive, I can search to see if I can find them in the recently released 1911 census. I’ll take my great-grandmother Ada Maria Howard as an example to demonstrate how to find an ancestor.

I’ve selected the 1911 person search from findmypast’s census collection and have entered basic information to begin with, following the findmypast rule of thumb of ‘less is more’. I’ve entered Ada in the first name field (leaving the variants box ticked so that the search includes nicknames, middle names and initials) and Howard in the surname field.

Initial search - please click to enlarge

This search returned 314 results, meaning there were 314 Ada Howards living in England and Wales in 1911. Fortunately, I have a bit more information about my great-grandmother courtesy of her marriage certificate (featured in the post below) so was able to narrow these results down a bit.

I selected ‘redefine current search’ and added a birth year to the search terms. Ada was recorded as being 23 years old at the time of her marriage in 1926, so I’ve entered 1903 as the birth year. The search defaults to include births two years either side of 1903, a really handy tactic to avoid any age inaccuracies in the census. It’s not unusual to see a year or two shaved off of or added to ancestors’ ages in census returns – be it down to vanity, an attempt to conceal an illegitimate child or even simply that the head of household couldn’t recall the exact ages of his/her children.

Redefined search - please click to enlarge

By adding this rough date of birth, I managed to narrow the list of results down to just 27 possibilities. However, Ada’s marriage certificate had provided me with another handy bit of information – her father’s name, Ernest. So I selected ‘redefine current search’ again and then switched to ‘advanced search’ via the tabs at the top of the search screen (see below). Here I entered ‘Ernest Howard’ in the ‘other persons living in the same household’ search field.

Advanced search - please click to enlarge

This time, my search returned just three results. One of these, the top result in the image below, looked like a clear winner as this Ada Howard was living in Hertfordshire in 1911 – the same county my great-grandmother was married in 15 years later. In addition, the marriage certificate had informed me that Ada’s middle name was Maria – not matching the middle names of either of the other two search results.

Search results - please click to enlarge

To confirm that this was indeed the right Ada, I viewed the transcript – a typewritten version of the original census page.

1911 census transcript - please click to enlarge

You can see that the transcript showed me exactly what I had hoped it would; Ada Howard living as the daughter of Ernest Howard, a Chimney Sweep. If you look at the bottom of the transcript, you can also see that the address the family were living at in 1911 exactly matches that recorded on my great-grandmother’s marriage certificate – Chapel End, Buntingford. I then decided to view the original census image.

Original 1911 census image - please click to enlarge

The 1911 census is the first from which original householder schedules have survived – the other surviving censuses from 1841 to 1901 consist of the census enumerators’ summary books. This means that the 1911 census return you can see above was actually completed by my great-great-grandfather Ernest Howard – you can see his signature at the bottom right of the page. Next to Ernest’s signature, we are also told exactly how many rooms (rooms, not bedrooms!) their home had. In the Howard family’s case, there were seven people living in just four rooms.

The 1911 census return has also provided me with brand new information about Ada’s mother, my great-great-grandmother. Her name is a bit tricky to read on the census return, however it has been recorded as ‘Merey’ in the transcript. The census form also informs me that she was 40 years old in 1911 and had been married to 45-year-old Ernest for 22 years. These handy bits of information will enable me to search the BMD indexes once again, this time for my great-great-grandparents’ marriage and births. In addition, if I look over to the right of the census form, I can actually see where Ernest and Merey were both born.

My 1911 search has provided one final bit of rather shocking information. In 1911, my great-great-grandmother had given birth to an impressive 12 children but sadly only half of these had survived. The number six has been listed in the census form’s ninth column, recording the number of ‘children who have died’. The 1911 census return has provided me with a lot of new information about my family, however the most striking point is just how precarious my great-grandmother’s existence must have been!

The marriage certificates I ordered from the General Register Office have provided me with lots of juicy new information about my great-grandparents. Below you’ll find a quick overview of the details that marriage certificates can give you.

Please click to enlarge

Please click to enlarge

I’ve added this new information to my family tree, extending it back a generation to include my four newly discovered great-great-grandfathers. I really feel like I’m making some progress! Now that I have an idea of my great-grandparents’ ages at marriage, I can have a root around for the records of their births in the BMD indexes. In addition, because all four seem to have been born before 1911 and because I now know their fathers’ names and occupations, I could attempt to search for my ancestors in the recently released 1911 census – currently the closest census to the modern day available.

Aside from this, I’d really like to find out a bit more about what my great-grandparents’ and great-great-grandfathers’ occupations entailed. In particular, I’d love to find out more about Jack Cooke’s employment as a Chauffeur, Ada Howard’s life as a Domestic Servant and what her father’s day would have been like working as a Chimney Sweep. If anyone has any suggestions as to how I might be able to find out a little more, please do point me in the right direction.